Page 10 of Kingdom of Briars and Roses

And now it was mine.

I staggered, my heart racing at the implication of what I’d just done—what I’d just become. I tried to resist it, to remove it somehow, but it was too late for that. I could feel the darkness feeding me, strengthening me.

My surroundings sharpened, the colors of the forest becoming more vivid. The ground beneath my feet seemed to hum as if the forest, too, could sense the shift in my magic.

“Aurelia!” Sonoma broke through the haze, and I gasped, drinking in the last of the creature’s energy with a shudder.

Sonoma was at my side, her face pale. “Are you all right?”

“I… What happened?”

“Your power awakened.”

My power… I had magic. Finally. Relief coursed through me for a split second until I realized how stricken Sonoma looked.

“What’s wrong?” I asked.

“How long have you known you had death magic?” she asked in a strange voice.

Death magic?

I blinked, trembling as her words sank in. “I…I don’t. That’s impossible. It’s?—”

Death magic belonged to the Furiosities. It belonged to Hel. To demons. To darkness. Not to summer fae like me.

But Sonoma was grabbing my shoulders, shaking them. “Look at me. Has this happened before?”

“No,” I said quickly. “It just came over me, and I took some of it in— Am I going to become like that thing?”

She shook her head. “I don’t think so.”

Her certainty broke through the fog of my fear, and I realized with startling clarity that, while Sonoma looked unhappy, she didn’t look surprised.

“How do you know so much about this?” I asked.

“Because I’ve seen your kind of magic before, and I know where it comes from.”

“Where does it come from?” I asked, dread coiling in my gut.

“Hel,” she said.

Despite those exact suspicions, I gaped at her. It was one thing to know it and another to have it confirmed. But it made no sense. Magic was bestowed through bloodlines. I’d seen our lineage as part of my studies. Both of my parents were very decidedly summer fae. There wasn’t a trace of demon in the entire royal line.

“How do I have it?” I asked.

And then, somewhere in the distance, I heard it.

Trumpets. From the castle.

The sound was faint, carried by the breeze through the trees, but unmistakable. Sonoma’s expression shuttered, and the moment was over. Callan was here. And I was already late.

Chapter Four

Aurelia

My heart pounded to the beat of my hurried footsteps as I raced through Sunspire’s halls to the grand foyer below. Servants scurried aside to let me pass. I took the stairs as fast as I dared in my heels and gown. My blonde hair trailed out behind me, cascading down my shoulders in loose, messy waves. After returning from the debacle in the forest, I’d only had time to hastily comb it out though it undoubtedly needed a wash—or two, thanks to the musty, dead smell I swore still clung to me. But there’d been time for no more than a cursory attempt at taming it before I pulled on a fresh gown and shoved my feet into these awful heels. My mother was going to be furious that I hadn’t made more of an effort. Hopefully, the knowledge that I’d been attacked by an Obsidian—possessed by Heliconia, no less—would soften her irritation toward me.

As long as that knowledge didn’t include the story of my death magic. Sonoma had made me swear not to mention it—not even to my parents. I’d agreed immediately. Mostly because the idea of telling them I possessed the same magic as the Furiosities left my stomach in knots.

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